Cookie policy

Cookies are small files a website stores on your device. This page explains the cookies PETAL’s public website uses, in plain English, and how you stay in control. It sits alongside our privacy policy, which covers personal data more broadly.

The categories we use

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), we may set strictly necessary cookies without asking, but we set anything non-essential only with your consent. Our cookie banner groups cookies into three categories.

1. Strictly necessary — always on

These keep the website working: they remember your cookie choices and your light/dark theme, keep you signed in, and help keep the service secure. They cannot be switched off, because the site would not work properly without them, and PECR allows them to be set without consent. They store no marketing identifiers. The record of your cookie choice is itself a strictly necessary, first-party cookie and holds no personal data.

2. Analytics — off until you allow it

Analytics cookies would help us understand what’s working — which pages are useful, where people get stuck — so we can improve PETAL. They are off by default and are only ever set if you turn them on. At launch we use no third-party website analytics, so in practice no analytics cookies are set today. If we introduce any, we will list each one (name, purpose, duration, provider) here before it is used.

3. Marketing — off until you allow it

Marketing cookies would help us measure our own campaigns. They are off by default and only set if you choose to allow them. We use none at launch; if that changes, this page and the banner will be updated first.

Your choices, and changing them

When you first visit, our banner lets you accept all optional cookies, reject them, or manageeach category — and rejecting is as easy as accepting. Nothing non-essential is set until you choose. You can change your mind whenever you like: open cookie settingshere (or use the “Cookie settings” link in the footer of every page) to update your choices. Your choice is remembered for about six months, after which we ask again.

Managing cookies in your browser

You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Because strictly necessary cookies keep the site working, blocking all cookies may stop parts of the website functioning as intended.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page whenever we add, change or remove a cookie, and before any new non-essential cookie is set. The date at the top shows when this version took effect.